SHANGHAI, Sept 4 (Reuters) - Chinese e-commerce giant

Alibaba's ( BABA ) domestic platforms Taobao and Tmall will

begin accepting payments from Tencent's ( TCTZF ) WeChat pay, Alibaba ( BABA ) said

in a statement on Wednesday.

Alibaba ( BABA ) is affiliated with the Jack Ma-founded Ant Group's

Alipay, which is WeChat's main rival for online

payments in China.

Tencent ( TCTZF ) has also been a major investor in other

e-commerce platforms, including Alibaba ( BABA ) rivals JD.com ( JD )

and PDD Holdings' ( PDD ). Both JD.com ( JD ) and Pinduoduo already

offer WeChat Pay as an option.

According to Alibaba's ( BABA ) statement, Taobao and Tmall Group

(TTG) have informed merchants about the draft plan to add WeChat

Pay as a payment option.

It did not make clear how quickly the service was likely to

be completely rolled out to users and Alibaba ( BABA ) did not respond to

queries about the timing.

In quarterly earnings results released last month, Alibaba ( BABA )

said its domestic e-commerce market share had stabilised.

Revenue at the company's domestic e-commerce arm fell by 1%,

but the number of purchasers and their purchase frequency

increased order growth by double digits.

China's e-commerce landscape was originally set up so that

users could only use Tencent's ( TCTZF ) payment system on

Tencent ( TCTZF )-affiliated platforms and Alipay on Alibaba ( BABA )-affliated

ones, but the "walled garden" system has gradually broken down.

Since 2021, WeChat users have been able to share links to

products on Alibaba's ( BABA ) e-commerce platforms, but not complete

transactions with WeChat Pay.